The compostable cup you can't compost, and the trouble with our recycling system

You've probably seen BioPak's brown and white containers and coffee cups, embossed with a pale green leaf, at your local single-origin speciality coffee shop. Sold as biodegradable, recyclable and compostable, they are meant to be a pinnacle of sustainability.

One minor problem: their products are very difficult to recycle or compost in Victoria. The company is open about this, although it may surprise consumers.

"At this stage, in most states, in most councils, our products will end up in landfill," says BioPak founder Richard Fine. And in landfill the coffee cups (like all disposable coffee cups) break down and release greenhouse gases. Other products do not break down at all.

BioPak says it is trying to do the right thing, but its problems doing so reveal serious issues with Australia's recycling industry. Frustrated stakeholders have taken to pointing fingers at each other; meanwhile, cutting-edge sustainable packaging continues to pile up in landfill.

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BioPak's sugarcane bowlsCredit:BioPak

BioPak is one of several packaging companies to launch in Australia in the past 20 years, catering to environment conscious consumers. They sell about 20 million bioplastic coffee cups and sugarcane-pulp fast-food trays a month.

But while bioplastic can be recycled, no recycling facilities in Australia have the technology to do so. Unless the products make it to a composting facility, they are destined for landfill. And there are only nine commercial composting facilities that accept BioPak in Australia – none of them in Victoria.

The company's coffee cups, which are made of paper coated with bioplastic, can technically be recycled. But many commercial facilities refuse to do so because of fears they will contaminate the recycling stream – fears BioPak says are unfounded. Technology can be installed allowing plants to separate the plastic and paper, but it is expensive and few plants in Australia have it.

Only seven councils in Victoria will recycle BioPak's cups, none of them in inner Melbourne.

BioPak's leaf cups are made with paper coated with Ingeo bioplasticCredit:BioPak

"While our cups are technically recyclable and technically compostable, without the facilities there they won't be recycled," says Mr Fine.

The result is this: most of the time BioPak's sustainable packaging ends up in landfill, where it remains. Although the company argues making a product out of bioplastic rather than plastic significantly reduces greenhouse gasses, the situation is not ideal.

Mr Fine likens the situation to the riddle of the chicken and the egg. Without industry investing in recycling or composting bioplastics, they will continue to land in landfill. But without a thriving bioplastics market, there is no incentive for industry to invest in recycling or composting them.

"When they first introduced plastic bottles and aluminium cans, they weren't recycled either," Mr Fine says. He's trying to get large recyclers such as VISY to invest in new technology or change their practices, but feels like no one is listening. VISY declined to comment for this story.

Innovative packaging companies shouldn't be criticised for trying to find a more sustainable solution, says Rowan Williams, president of the Australasian Bioplastics Association.

"These guys are in front of the game – they are not doing some misleading. The consumer wants to do the right thing. Do you punish these people for promoting something to try to grow awareness?"

Grant Musgrove, CEO of the Australian Council of Recycling, also feels like he is not being listened to.

He says packaging companies need to stop dreaming up new "sustainable" packaging that can only be recycled by expensive specialised facilities. Make it out of something they can already recycle – such as cardboard, he says.

"It's relatively easy to come up with a new packaging format. Packaging companies that don't talk to recycling companies first, and then complain about their product not being recycled – there is an abject lesson."

Gayle Sloan, chief executive officer of Waste Management Association of Australia, says: "The issue is not the industry. Rather, the issue lies with the packager choosing to make a product that they know does not have an end use."

Everyone can agree on one thing: to bring both industries together the government needs to take the lead and set a direction for both the packaging and recycling industries. Via regulation, the government could indicate what materials it wants the industry to use – recyclable, compostable or both – and what it wants recyclers to accept, giving investment clarity to both sectors.

"The whole idea of this is to raise the awareness of people that it can and should be done – but there is no government policy," says the bioplastics association's Mr Williams.